RebelMike

Thank you! The alligator decoration was specially painted for the 2016 challenge. In normal times, you can hire William from the Inland Navigators: http://www.inlandnavigators.co.uk/narrowboat-william.html

Log time: 22:00, Saturday 3rd May 2014 This year Rebellion have opted to take a more historic narrowboat around Birmingham for the BCN challenge. We’ve arranged to hire nb William for the week - who we hear will win the challenge as part of the Inland Alligators team in 2016. We’re very much looking forward to a week cruising Birmingham’s canals to the sound of William’s Bolinder engine. Unfortunately as we’re not taking nb Rebellion this year we won’t be able to live stream our progress as we did last year, however preliminary tests suggest we have been successful in our modification of the Automat Sehnsucht to allow nb William’s location to be tracked using a time travelling GPS signal. Once the challenge starts, you’ll be able to follow our progress here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=14DTZ6L-V-Dc2k2KlIsBdrtdTW5R36awN&ll=52.48009774194999%2C-1.910045504269192&z=15 (Please note that due to temporal interference and/or us occasionally having to do some w*rk the location signal may sometimes be delayed) Crewing along with me are @smudgepuss, @HuggableHamster and Amy (not on the forum). We’ve got William well stocked with supplies for the trip (food, period clothing, 18th century coins and such), and even a few virtual barrels of ale that we’re hoping to share with you all at the finish, providing we don’t have to barter them away for safe passage at any point during our journey. We’re currently doing some late night cruising to get William into position, as is traditional on the BCN challenge!

Is there a reason for the lower speed limit? I assume that given the non-scoring nature of these portions no one is going to use one of these intentionally - it's only going to be if you get stuck due to a stoppage. Given that, the 1.5 mph speed limit to get back on to scoring canal seems a little harsh to me, it feels like it's just compounding the penalty for a problem you couldn't predict. I could be wrong though - maybe you've identified a particularly high scoring route using one of these sections that you want to discourage? I didn't even consider them when route planning!

@Capt Ahab, would it be OK to use photos from your blog (properly attributed) in our cruising log? I ask here rather than by PM as I expect other teams might wish to do the same!

Ah, the competition is hotting up now! We've promised the Inland Alligators that we'll secure a second victory for nb William this year, so if you wouldn't mind taking it a little bit more leisurely through the lock flights that would be much appreciated ?

I suggest the following clarification:

Thank you for your efforts putting this together - adding 60 miles of canal to the route planning spreadsheet and coming up with adapted rules for virtual cruising was always going to be a significant piece of work! It looks like we'll only need to make minor tweaks to our route based on the latest revisions, I hope it's the same for other teams. Now we just have a long list of photographs to source ? Ooo, so next time we get to have arguments over whether particular canals were navigable or not in 1870, I look forward to it

Doing a full pass through the detail now, spotted one more error: Anson Jn to Walsall Jn should be 1.5 or 2 miles not 0.5 (it's 1 mile 6 furlongs in Bradshaws) Some notes: Ideally, Factory Jn to Deepfields Jn on the new main line should be split at Bloomfield Jn. Tame Valley to Pudding Green is still present, as well as its subsections. Does this mean that section now scores both ways (providing it is completely completed in one direction)? The old main line from Brades Hall to Factory now scores both ways - you added lots of entries for this so I'm sure that's intentional. Thank you for adding Two Locks Line

Couple of errors I've spotted: Ogley Junction to Anglesey Basin and return should be 3 miles not 6 Tipton Green to Factory is 2 furlongs so should be 0.5 miles not 1 Also, assuming the intention is now that only sections that have been completely navigated score points, it would be nice to explicitly state that in the rules at the top of the sheet.

Yes I think it is fair enough not to split it - it's just possible it might be nice to detour down there if you didn't have to commit to the whole lot. As it is, it's probably only sensible to do it if you start at Hatherton - which is fine, and similar to a lot of the other possible starting points.

If we are going to go down the route of describing all sections, then I agree with that list, except I would also split the New Main Line at Watery Lane Jn, so add: Dudley Port Jn to Watery Lane Jn Watery Lane Jn to Factory Jn And possibly split the Hatherton Branch to allow boats to turn at Churchbridge Jn (to avoid travelling the non-BCN part of the Hatherton Branch). I know our opinions differ here, but my view is that splitting these sections up (or just allowing scoring of part sections) allows us to be more creative with our routes and gives us more chance to react to any challenges that might come up due to stoppages or whatever else may be thrown at us during the challenge! I am intrigued to see how stoppages will cause a problem for boats that can time travel, but I expect that will become clear next week

While we can discuss things we do need you to make a ruling. I think Rebellion, Firefly and The Workers would prefer part sections to be allowed, whereas Keeping Up would prefer them not to be. I don't think any other teams have weighed in. It would be good to have that ruling today as it makes a big difference to routes.

Yes we normally don't even manage 2mph along there, and that speed calculation is including the extra 1.5 miles that don't really exist! If the mileage is corrected then it will be even less appealing in the real challenge, so maybe we should stay quiet On the plus side for the virtual cruise you can choose to travel it in a different time period when it would have actually been dredged!

I would say a part section can only ever be scored once traveling in the same direction, and can only be scored once in each direction if it is explicitly marked as scoring in both directions, it is part of an "and return" section, or it explicitly appears in each direction on the score sheet.

I've handled this by fiddling some distances slightly so the miles fit the spreadsheet. I think it's ok to allow teams a bit of leeway when counting the miles on stretches like this, providing totals match what's in the spreadsheet and any part lengths claimed are plausible. The organisers are clearly putting in a bunch of extra work behind the scenes preparing for the challenge days so asking them to fix up errors they've inherited from the real challenge or verify large numbers of extra sections at this stage is maybe a bit much - providing they are happy to allow us to use a little bit of discretion when planning and scoring our routes.

I agree - I don't think there's any need for a new version of the spreadsheet, providing it is agreed that we can claim the points for miles we actually (virtually) travel, without having to complete entire named sections on the sheet in order to score them. Yes, that would be great!

I'm quite happy if the rule is that each team needs to have done their research and the organisers can quibble your scoresheet if they disagree with what you enter. We found it quite a challenge to work out how everything fitted together on the basis of the limited info in the spreadsheet, so it feels like specifying a lot of this information would reduce that challenge. On the other hand, specifying everything would maybe make things a bit fairer by ensuring everyone was rounding the same way, and probably save the organisers some pain arguing route lengths with teams after the scoresheets have been submitted. However, if the rule is that named sections in the existing spreadsheet have to be completed in full then I believe it becomes impossible to cruise some of the historic through canals without doing a significant amount of non-points scoring cruising, which surely can't be the intention.

Hold on, does that mean the lengths named in the sheet need to be completed in full to score? Our planned route turns off existing canals on to historic through canals and doesn't always come back to complete the other part of the length. I had expected we'd just enter the actual distance travelled in the scoresheet - we'd need to do that on the entries for each day anyway. If the intention is that the score at the end will only count completed named sections on the route planner, then could I request that long sections that have a junction with a through canal in the middle be broken up? I have broken them up in our version of the spreadsheet based on Bradshaws so could supply the sections and lengths for you to base a revision on if that would be helpful.

Apologies, you're right - I read the wrong entry. So as the missing distance is under half a mile we're calling it negligible - i.e. Bradley Workshops is effectively at (for route planning purposes) the start of Rotten Brunt?

Thank you. Quick clarification please: Deepfields to Bradley Workshops is now listed as 2 miles, does this cover the whole stretch past the Workshops (which are ~1.5 miles from Deepfields I believe) to the junction with Rotten Brunt? That would mean half a mile of closed canal scoring at 3x bonus rather than 4x (which is fine if that's correct I just want to be sure I'm matching sections in the spreadsheet to canal correctly!)

Fair play

Ah yes - I forgot that Lizzie had already suggested the correct solution to this problem - we should fill William with barrels of ale for the party at the finish (we may even tap one or two early to sustain us through the challenge ?)

So the concern is the relatively straight sides of William's back cabin? I can see that is a possible issue. We'll take the potential issue into account when planning - maybe we can devise a small space-warping gadget to go along with the time machine, allowing us to draw the sides in for the trip... Regardless of any Tunnel difficulties, we're very much looking forward to having a whole week of virtual cruising with the sound of the Bolinder propelling us!

Hmm, that's unfortunate - I note in Bradshaw's the air draught is listed as 5'9" rather than the current listed 5' 5". Unfortunately I haven't yet been through the tunnel myself to see, but I guess that repairs have lowered the available headroom? So maybe a little trip back in time might help us fit!

Following on from this, Team Rebellion are pleased to announce that the Inland Alligators have agreed to allow us to virtually hire nb William for this year's challenge. As one half of a working pair, William won the 2016 challenge so we hope to be able to repeat that success! Meanwhile, Team Rebellion's planning department are unsure whether a trip through Dudley Tunnel is going to be part of the route after all, but they await the spreadsheet update before making any further decisions, and are pleased to be unconstrained by Rebellion's modern air draught.